What type of own competing product? BlackRock already have a ton of ETFs, why should they try to ban bitcoin to make a similar product which anyway it'll never be like bitcoin? Is that what you're trying to suggest? Like BlackRock make their own bitcoin and sell that ETF? Because in that case it would have no value, it's like if tomorrow Apple or Google make their own bitcoin, if nobody embraces it there is no point. Bitcoin is unique because it's completely decentralized, you can't simply create a new bitcoin hoping it'll follow the path of the original one.
It would be like if Apple or Google make their own bitcoin
and the US government mandates it's usage and outlaws the original Bitcoin at the same time.
And yes, with the full power of the US government, they could simply blackmail all major Bitcoin holders into using their fork. And then the bulk of the Bitcoin wallets would use the US-legal fork, and then that would be... Bitcoin.
We're getting pretty hypothetical here, and I don't expect anything exactly like this to happen, but the point here is that the US government can control Bitcoin if it wants to--and I suspect that relatively small concessions (e.g. to reduce criminal activity) will be added in the future.
And nobody's going to care because this is all going to make Bitcoin's price go up--precisely
because it's controlled by the US government...
How's that for irony
...
